Hoboken Weighs Hunkering Down

By

Heather Haddon

Dec. 21, 2012 10:42 p.m. ET

HOBOKEN, N.J.—A broad range of ideas is under review to fortify this compact city against the kind of floodwaters that overwhelmed it from two directions during superstorm Sandy—from building a sea wall to raising power stations high above ground.

Protective structures also have been proposed for New York City across the Hudson River, but Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
has rejected projects such as a sea wall as too expensive. Hoboken, though, is so vulnerable and so small—just one mile square—that experimental measures might be feasible.

ENLARGE

The Long Slip Canal that runs along side of the NJ Transit rail yards experienced extensive flooding from superstorm Sandy.
Peter Foley for The Wall Street Journal

"Hoboken is small enough. Maybe some crazy idea would be useful," said Philip Orton, a research scientist and storm-surge expert at the Stevens Institute of Technology, a private university in Hoboken.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer said she wants new flood protection in place by the end of 2013.

"From my standpoint, we can't go another year like this," she said.

Among the ideas are raising city roads, adding pumps and building a mammoth system that would channel floodwaters into tunnels and onto lower-lying land to take advantage of the Meadowlands' natural function as a drainage system for New Jersey cities—including Hoboken.

Zoning changes are also being considered to prevent the building of ground-floor apartments in flood zones, as is a shift to an energy system that would allow the city to produce some of its own power to supplement the utility grid.

"I think Hoboken is a perfect candidate for smart grid," said Adam Zellner, president of Greener by Design, a New Brunswick consulting firm that has spoken to the city about creating independent power production. "It can be done in a way that's much more digestible because it's small."

Although the proposals have sparked the imagination of engineers, the federal government has yet to weigh in on what it would recommend.

Ms. Zimmer is assembling a task force of property owners, local officials and engineers from the Stevens Institute to discuss the city's flood-protection options.

One measure the mayor supports would raise the city's power substations onto platforms such as shipping containers, a novelty that has been used in other flood-prone areas. An estimated 90% of the city lost power after Sandy flooded Hoboken's three substations.

"We have to think outside a box," Ms. Zimmer said. "I don't want to be going into hurricane season with my substations exposed."

A sea wall also could have helped prevent flooding from the Long Slip Canal—an industrial inlet near NJ Transit's rail yards that was overwhelmed by Sandy's storm surge, said Ron Hine, director of the Fund for a Better Waterfront, a group monitoring Hoboken coastline development. Two luxury developments sustained serious flooding from the canal storm surge.

"A sea wall in front of the canal could help solve that problem," Mr. Hine said.

Few debate the need for better flood protection in Hoboken, a city that until the 19th century was on an island. Swaths of it remain below sea level.

Hoboken has flooded repeatedly in the past, and in the spring a $17 million pump was completed in the city's southwest section to help mitigate heavy rains.

The pump can remove 75 million gallons of water per day from the city when running, and it did its job during Sandy, said city spokesman Juan Melli.

"It makes the water drain a lot faster," Mr. Melli said. "If we hadn't had it, the flooding would have remained for many more days."

Sandy pushed floodwaters into the city from Weehawken Cove in the north and from Long Slip Canal in the south. Residents, some of whom were trapped in their buildings for days, said floodwaters were chest-high in some streets.

Sandy caused $10 million in damage to city infrastructure, and the Hoboken City Council recently approved $4.2 million in emergency expenditures to repair damaged city facilities.

"I lost everything," said Karen Nason, a Hoboken resident and business owner who sustained flooding both in her home and her floral shop. Her car was ruined, and much of the stock in her store died.

Flood-protection efforts will depend on federal funding. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie included more than $7 billion for mitigation and prevention in his request for congressional funding for the state after Sandy. Details on what the mitigation funds would cover haven't been made available.

Even routine flood-prevention projects are costly.

One such, to restore 21 miles of shoreline between Sea Bright and Manasquan in New Jersey, will cost $222 million, with additional spending in store to continue replenishing sand once it erodes.

A tunnel system to divert floodwaters from Hoboken and other New Jersey cities to the Meadowlands would likely cost billions of dollars, though it would offer a more long-term flood-projection strategy than simply lifting roads or building a sea wall, Mr. Orton said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn't have mitigation studies specifically looking at Hoboken, but top agency leaders spoke with Hoboken officials immediately after Sandy, and those conversations likely addressed future flood prevention, said Chris Gardner, a spokesman for the New York District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Hoboken resident Chris Halleron has seen his commute time double since PATH service was suspended due to Sandy. He said he was open to flood-mitigation measures, even those that were unsightly.

"We moved to Hoboken for its pretty views of Manhattan, but if we had to look over a sea wall to maintain those views, I'm all for it," said Mr. Halleron, a magazine editor. "It needs to be addressed."

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